The news is broken.

When the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. happened, the news exploded. Networks were buzzing with all kinds of information from various “sources.” Within hours of the incident, CNN had a profile picture of who they believed was the shooter. Then the picture was circulating all over the Internet, Twitter, and Facebook. But as we found out later, that picture wasn’t Adam Lanza. His mother wasn’t a teacher at the school. And dozen of other “breaking news” reports had been completely wrong.

Social media is a blessing and a curse. The fact that anyone can get breaking news right as it happens from anywhere in the world is an amazing thing. It’s instant. But that’s its curse too. And we saw the same mistake made with the covering of the Boston Marathon attack.

Reports were flying on Twitter that a suspect had been identified and an arrest was being made. AP, the Boston Globe, CNN, FOX, and CBS were all reporting it. Networks were rushing to get to the federal court house in Boston to see the suspect.

I remember hearing a radio talk show host say once that he would rather be last to be first than first to be wrong when it comes to reporting. There was only one news station that refused to report it. NBC. They stated that they were “uncomfortable” breaking the story. And guess what? They were right. The F.B.I went on the record to conform that, no, no arrest had been made. No suspect was in route to the courthouse. CNN was forced to backtrack on air about how three sources had just informed them that absolutely no arrests had been made.

I was just on Google a few minutes ago. Reports are still all over the place. Some articles are stating that there are now TWO suspects. I can’t help but sigh and say, “What happened to journalism?”

What’s the point of the news? To inform. But how can the public have all the right facts if everyone’s rushing to be first with the wrong facts? And social media doesn’t help. It’s so easy for reporters to hit that retweet button without checking where exactly a fact came from. Within seconds, all their followers see it. Then they’re retweeting it too all in a matter of seconds.

Yes, I understand that facts are scarce at the moment when it comes to Boston. Yes, we are all trying to grasp what happened and why. But it’s an injustice to the public to just carelessly throw around facts without double checking where they came from. We learned that with Newtown. Now, why are we doing the same thing with Boston.

Every journalist and future journalist should take note from this day on. The way we present breaking news is broken. We need to be so careful now in an instant culture. Journalism is supposed to have this “watchdog” mentality where we separate fact from fiction, not mixing the two. Journalists need to get back to that mindset.